8 August 2011Last updated at 16:12

In pictures: MOSI celebrates 100 years of Rutherford's atom

Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) has opened an exhibition celebrating the centenary of Ernest Lord Rutherford's 1911 description of his model of the atom at the University of Manchester, which led to the creation of nuclear physics and a successful experiment to "split the atom" in 1919.

Ernest Rutherford (right) and his assistant Hans Geiger in Manchester (Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand)

New Zealander Lord Rutherford arrived in Manchester in 1907. His early work saw him awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908, though his most famous scientific moments came after that date.

Dr Ernest Walton, Ernest Lord Rutherford and Dr John Cockcroft (left to right) who all 'split the atom'

The Rutherford atomic model proposed in 1911 turned out to be not quite correct. However, it is the image of electrons forming ellipses around a central nucleus which is used across the globe as a symbol for atomic and nuclear items and institutions.

The exhibition at MOSI, which features original equipment and items from Rutherford's time in Manchester, was opened by his great-granddaughter Mary Fowler, Professor of Geophysics.

MOSI science curator Cat Rushmore said it was "the first time that such a large collection of objects and papers related to Rutherford has been available for public display". Many of the objects are on loan from the universities of Manchester and Cambridge.

Amongst the items on display are a 1919 notebook which records the experiment with William Kay where they "split the atom", the desk Rutherford used in Manchester and a selection of original papers describing the model of the nuclear atom.

Ernest Rutherford (centre-right) at Solvay Conference, Brussels, 1911 - also shown are Marie Curie (in front of Rutherford) and Albert Einstein (second from right)

"Ernest Rutherford: Father of Nuclear Physics" is at MOSI until Sunday, 30 October 2011.

Manchester

In pictures: MOSI celebrates 100 years of Rutherford's atom

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